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The Breakfast Briefing

Oh the anticipation!

Markets are primed, traders have their itchy fingers on the “buy” button and investors are jazzed for a big announcement from Ben Bernanke and crew thanks to some natty jawboning from central bankers of late.

And, if we have learned anything, that is setting the stage for a Big Fat Disappointment.

“We think there is plenty of scope for disappointment,” says John Higgins of Capital Economics. “We doubt the Fed is ready to sanction a third round of large-scale asset purchases.”

And more BFD is likely to come from the European Central Bank when it meets on Thursday. After teasing investors with “whatever it takes” bravado last week, ECB President Mario Draghi will probably be a letdown too, Higgins says, noting the ECB’s “bark could prove louder than its bite.”

Joseph LaVorgna of Deutsche Bank is also less than optimistic for any whiz-bang announcement.

“The recent economic data does not appear to warrant an urgent policy response, so we think the current meeting will be used to brainstorm future policy options,” he says. “We do not anticipate any major initiatives to be announced.”

That would be a real bummer seeing stocks actually did okay in July after a shaky start, with the Dow ending up 1%. That was thanks largely to some expectations of big central bank action. Investors were also starting to calm down a bit and focus in on a tiny, pinprick of light at the end of that long, dark tunnel of European malaise.

So after being thoroughly deflated by Higgins, we went searching for something positive to report — and history gave us a hand. Some dubiously encouraging factoids: On Fed days since December 2008, the S&P 500 has risen two-thirds of the time, averaging a 0.5% gain, according to Birinyi Associates. (However those gains have been fleeting. The index has averaged a 0.4% drop on the day after the Fed makes a policy announcement, Birinyi points out.)

Today is Aug. 1 (that’s not the positive thing). The S&P 500 has risen on the first day of the month in six of the seven months of the year. (The lone down start to a month came in June, according to Bespoke Investment Group. The S&P 500 dropped 2.5% that day, one of the worst days of the year, as a dismal jobs report sent investors fleeing out of the market.)

The upshot? It could be bad, it could be not so bad. But chances of this day marking the beginning of a QE-fueled rally are extremely slim.

Avon is slated to report its second-quarter results. The cosmetics giant is expected to earn 21 cents a share on revenue of $2.68 billion, according to the average estimate of analysts polled by FactSet.

Exelon will post a second-quarter profit of 64 cents a share on revenue of $4.43 billion if Wall Street’s best guesses are on the mark.

Harley-Davidson is expected to earn $1.05 a share on sales of $1.64 billion.